The Adventures of Merrie and Sioux in MiddleEarth
by Wayward Dancer
Summary: Merrie and Sioux were talented, gorgeous, loved and practically perfect in every way. Then they got thrown into MiddleEarth, where looks and talent may not be enough...
1. Chapter 1

**Merrie and Sioux in Middle-Earth. **

_Disclaimer:_ JRR Tolkien, the god, the genius, the man, is the one who owns Lord of the Rings. He discovered Middle-Earth, not me. I'm just borrowing it all, for non-profit amusement. Merrie and Sioux are (mostly, sort of) mine, as far as dreaded fictional archetypes can be.

_Note:_ For Ziggy. And for me. And for anyone else who wants to be amused by this.

_**Directions Before Reading Further: **_

_**Place tongue firmly in cheek. Gently bite down, holding tongue firmly in place. **_

**Chapter 1**

Merrie and Sioux were the best of friends. In fact, they were the best at almost everything, but they never let it go to their heads.

Sioux was an actress and fashion designer, with her own up-and-coming boutique on the trendiest street in the fashion district, steady employment in acting gigs and Broadway prospects.

Merrie spent part of her time as a model and actress, which was how they had met, and the other part writing. Lately she was making a name for herself on the best-seller lists, leading her agents to declare war on one another.

Since, as it has been said, they were both very good at these assorted pastimes, it might have been assumed that they would be quite happy with the status-quo: pretty paychecks, popularity, access to exclusive clubs, they had the bases covered.

The truth of the matter was they were miserable. Oh, granted, they distracted themselves quite well, what with all those parties and the various men of the famous and handsome variety that frequented those events, but deep, deep, deep down, they really were quite unhappy. So, instead of attending all the countless galas in pursuit of nightly amusement, they decided to try something new and different. They each decided to read a book. Then another.

After a while, they began to discuss them.

After another while they stopped reading romances and tried something a little more adventurous, called "The Lord of the Rings."

It was a passtime they soon came to regret.

"Nice book!" Sioux cooed as Merrie showed off her latest purchase.

Around them the trendy café was packed with the usual scattered In-Cognito In-Crowd and Assorted Hangers-On, but looking at the beautiful leather-bound and illustrated book before her, Sioux quite forgot her cool nonchalance and snatched the book from Merrie.

Merrie quickly forgot all about her latest favorite buy as she contemplated which iced beverage would be today's trendiest drink.

As she came back to the table, iced skinny decaf vanilla mocha chai latte with nonfat skim cream in hand, she laughed to see Sioux so absorbed in the illustrations.

It was a few moments later, and Merrie had just flipped to the review section of the NY Times when everything went horribly wrong.

"Very funny, Mer," Souix's pleasant voice was strained.

"What?" Merrie asked, looking up from the Times, and taking a sip of her latte. She barely glanced at Souix before she returned her attention to the article. "The Times is raving about your show, you know. 'Souix's Golden Touch strikes again' and some jazz."

"Great," Souix's voice was losing some of its pleasantness. "Now what did you put on the picture of Rivendell?"

"Huh?" Merrie's blue eyes never left her paper.

"My finger. Is stuck. On. This. Picture," Souix growled between gritted teeth. Merrie grinned.

"Cute, Souix. Now quit molesting my book."

"I am not molesting anything!" Souix's voice was taking on an edge of panic. "My finger's stuck!" Her volume was creeping upward with every syllable (along with her pitch) and Merrie looked around to check that no one was staring. And that no glasses had shattered.

"What are you talking about?" She sighed, dropping her NYT and leaning across the table to pull at Souix's hand.

"Ow!"

"What the – your finger's stuck!"

"I told you – ow! Stop that, it hurts!"

Merrie ignored her and kept pulling. She placed one hand on the book, planted her feet firmly and pulled on Souix's hand. Then…

She screamed.

The scream continued, shattering the glass that had contained Sioux's passion fruit-banana-strawberry-kiwi smoothie and sending said smoothie oozing over the table.

Merrie, however, failed to notice, as her attention was held by the sight of her hand and forearm sinking into the book.

"Merrie!" Sioux shrieked, using her free arm to tug on her friend's disappearing appendage.

"Help!" the blond whimpered. "It's eating me…"

Sioux looked around frantically but around them, the coffee shop's billowy equilibrium continued on as if they were not there.

"Sioux, stop it!" Merrie's voice was hoarse from screaming.

"Stop what?" Sioux turned to glare, but Merrie wasn't looking. She was too busy staring at the book.

Against her better judgment, Sioux followed her friend's gaze. She wished she hadn't.

Her arm too was now sunk to the elbow into the book.

"Not good," were the only words that game to mind, and so she said them.

"Let go," Merrie said, giving the book a practiced authoritative tone that had worked wonders on producers and stubborn executives.

"Merrie, it's a book, not a Pomeranian."

"Well, what's your idea then?"

"One of us should – hey, can you feel your arm?"

Merrie's aquamarine eyes met Sue's emerald ones. "Yeah," she said after a moment. "It's… there…" Merrie wiggled her arm, or what could be seen of it, as it was now gone nearly to the shoulder.

"All right," Sioux took a deep breath. "One of us is going to have to go further in and push us back out."

She looked at Merrie expectantly.

"Well, you go ahead and jump right on in," Merrie said, her eyes a little too bland.

"But you're shorter. It's less of you to fit through there," Sioux pointed out, her emerald eyes taking on a strange sheen.

"Not my fault someone hasn't been keeping to the non fat whipped cream," Merrie muttered. "Besides, taller, better leverage," she added, gesturing to Sioux who towered all of two inches above her own 5'0 frame.

Sioux grabbed Merrie's arm. "I'll pull you out after."

Merrie pulled away from Sioux as much as the book would let her, considering they were sinking into the same page. "Look, it's not that big a book! My head isn't going to fit!"

"Wanna bet?" Sioux's eyes were gleaming. Merrie tried to back away and couldn't.

"No. I'm not doing it. You first!"

"You are going!"

"Am not!" Merrie grabbed Souix's reaching arm and twisted.

"YOU-!" Whatever insult Souix was going to hurl was lost as quickly as their balance- it was hard to remain upright with one hand lost inside a book while lunging toward one's struggling friend.

They both had a sensation of a particularly nasty paper-cut swallowing them whole and pulling them toward an even nastier staple wound. The world around them did a strange sort of swirl that was better left to cheesy 1980s movies before it completed a respectable fade to black.


	2. Chapter 2

**Merrie and Sioux in Middle-Earth. **

**Chapter 2**

_Disclaimer:_ JRR Tolkien owns Middle-Earth. In case you were wondering. And nope, I'm not him. If I was I would be richer and far more dead. And male. And not writing this story, which is all in fun and not meant to legally harm anyone.

------

When the two young women came to, they immediately wished they had stayed from. Despite the pounding headache, Sioux struggled to her feet to survey their new location.

"Insert requisite remark on the current lack of Kansas-like characteristics in our surroundings here," Sioux groaned as she stared around at the very gray, rocky, foggy landscape. She placed a hand to her head and whimpered. "That book bites."

"Remarking on simply a lack of Kansan characteristics would imply the possibility of our locale being in a highly-colored land, surrounded by small singing people, whereas we are in a remarkably gray mountainous place, surrounded by large silent rocks." Merrie finished this speech with a dramatic shiver and hugged her knees to her chest, curling up and looking stylishly waifish.

Sioux sighed, looking down at her companion. "Come on, let's get out of here, Mer. This place is giving me the creeps." Merrie's head shot up and she glared reproachfully.

"Out! Out to WHERE!" She flung her arm out, gesturing at the gray around them. "We don't know where here is or how to get anywhere! Let's just stay here and wait for the search parties to find us."

The shouting echoed off the rocks, taking on an ominous, empty tone which sent chills down Sioux's spine, but seemed to mollify Merrie as she folded herself back into her forlorn waif pose.

"We can't be that far!" Sioux protested, keeping her tone carefully calm. "We weren't out that long. Look," she tapped her watch, "It's been like, half an hour."

"FAR!" Merrie's voice rose several octaves, turning the syllable into an outraged squeak. "We. Were sucked into. A book. A Book, Sioux. A book pulled us into a picture and spit us out!"

Sioux took a deep breath, fighting her annoyance. "You bought it," she said under her breath. Merrie snorted in disgust.

"You had to paw through it looking for pictures of hot elves."

"Elves are hot!"

And htat seemed to brook no further arguments. It was hard to protest the truth, unless one was a politician and trained for such things. The two lapsed into silence, staring out at the grayness until Merrie finally spoke.

"What picture were you looking at?"

Sioux closed her eyes, taking a moment to remember. "Rivendell," she said at last. "Why?" She turned from admiring the scintillating vistas of haze to look closely at her friend.

"Well," Merrie drew the word out as she considered her next words, feeling that speaking the thoughts out loud would be taking a much larger deviation from sanity than she was comfortable with. "Well, if we fell into a picture of Rivendell, maybe these are the Misty Mountains…"

Sioux raised an eyebrow. Merrie too had suffered a bump on the head, she was even now rubbing her temples. Maybe the bump had been worse than Sioux's.

"If we fell into that picture, we would be in Rivendell, a place with is not real," she said evenly, pronouncing each syllable with careful precision, as if she was speaking to a partially deaf thee-year-old. Merrie's jaw clenched.

"Fine," she growled between gritted teeth, "you explain our literary transportation to the Gray and Murky."

They fell into silence once again, listening to water drip steadily onto stone somewhere nearby until Sioux gave in with a heavy sigh. She was fairly certain listening to the dull dripping was some sort of torture.

"Okay, so if these are the Misty Mountains, which we fell into via a picture of Rivendell by some fluke of directionally-challenged fate, Which way do we go from here?"

"West," Merrie answered readily, then sighed. "Whichever way that is."

"Right. West." Sioux turned to the left, where a vaguely clear path could be discerned through the rocks. "Does that look westish?"

Merrie stood, looking to the right where the path was even less clear. "Works for me," she shrugged after a moment, turning to follow Sioux's leftward lead.

"Mer," Sioux's quiet voice echoed through the mist around them, accompanied by the crunching of their unsteady steps on the rocky path. "Thanks."

"For what?"

"Starting that ballet flat trend. Imagine this in stilettos."

Merrie laughed softly. "Yeah, well, my feet are still kiling me. Why didn't we start a tennis shoe fad?"

"Good question. Do you think we'll end up in Rivendell? What else is around the Mountains?"

It took Merrie a moment to try to construct a map of Middle-Earth in her head. "Maybe. Or the north, whatever's there, or the south… which I think is a lot more mountains and then like Gondor or something… or the east, which is Mirkwood."

"I hate spiders," Sioux whispered, shuddering.

They said nothing more, contemplating their possible destinations, with only the crunching of rocks beneath their stylish flats (and the occasional curse as one pebble after another rebelled by leaping into one of the stylish flats) to break the silence.

After a long time and one particularly violent pebble, Sioux announced that they needed to find a cave for the night. This was because the hazy nebula of light she supposed was the sun was starting to get near the horizon and because this seemed to be an adventure in Middle-Earth and finding caves for the night had been the customary venue for nightly accommodations as far as she could remember.

"The light is fading," she remarked, feeling that the very least they could do to make the best of the situation would be to utter impressive phrases.

"How can you tell?" Merrie wondered, looking up at the nebulous ball of light. "This place is like smog central…" she scowled at the offending mist. "I think you're right though. Let's go spelunking."

It was much later before they found a cave. It looked satisfyingly large, with a good arched opening which reassured them that this was indeed a good adventuring accommodation, while retaining a certain aura of uneasy creepiness.

They stepped into the cave, but only went a few feet before they came to where the sun's dim light failed, giving way to a forbidding darkness. Neither girl had ever been one to have childish fears of things going bump in the night, yet looking onto this particular darkness, where no stars or moon or McDonald's sign glowed in the distance, they edged closer to one another. It was not so much as things going bump in the night, but more as if this dark would be going bump all by itself.

Sioux took a long, quavering look at the blackness. "Should we see how deep the rabbit hole goes?" she asked, forcing herself to use a cheery, brave, heroine voice she had perfected on the set of a pirate movie, one of her more cherished films.

Recognizing the tone of the voice, Merrie nearly laughed. At least, she made a sound that might have been a laugh, if a deep near-panic hadn't been trying to close her throat.

"We know how deep it could go," she managed, outraged at her friend's cheerful disregard of their possible current predicament. Hadn't Sioux bloody read the books? "Do you really want to investigate?" she asked in disbelief. "Do you remember what lives in the Misty Mountains?

"I mean, I'm all for getting captured and served to a Goblin King… but I'd rather he be a David Bowie clone in tights, and honestly, this does not look like the place to find singing Muppets!" she could feel the hysteria bubbling up again, threatening to sweep her off into frantic shrieks and wall-clawing fits.

"But sure, let's go get beaten up and served flambe to some twisted fantasy of a bored sadistic college professor! I mean, what the hell, that's how I want to spend my weekend! When the book spits us out we can laugh and have a great chat about it: Hey, wasn't it great when he busted your ribs and snacked on your still-beating heart? Oh yeah, and I loved the part where I got a rusty sword stabbed through my stomach…!"

"Oh my god, Merrie! Calm the hell down!" Sioux hissed.

That did it. She spun to face her best friend, shoving tangled blond hair away from her face in preparation for battle. "Calm down! CALM DOWN? Fucking hell, Sioux, we are in The Misty fucking Mountains in Middle fucking Earth, via a picture of Riven-fucking-dell. And now we are in a cave, in a place where there are things that kill, eat, maim, torture, and oh yeah, kill you. Did I mention killing and torture?

"So don't fucking order me to calm down. I am not your personal—"

"Shut the HELL up!" Sioux snarled, glaring into her friend's blue eyes. "You think I don't get that? Yeah, I do, but excuse me if I don't feel like cowering like a- a- coward! God, get a spine."

"Coward? Just because I don't want to waltz into the dark and have a looksie at Goblin Land and get served up for dinner. Surviving, yeah, a real cowardly goal. Oh, the great Sioux Johan has denounced me as a coward!" She raised a hand to her forehead in mock distress, "Oh what shall I do? The woman who never stayed to fight for anything in her entire life says I am a coward! I die."

Merrie clasped a hand to her heart. "Really, I'm dying of shame inside. Being not-suicidal is so uncool. We can't all be sensitive artistes with a secret deathwish, I guess."

"Shut. Up. You selfish, arrogant, entitled, bourgeois brat. At least I never crusaded for inane causes no one cared about. Homeless Ferrets, oh, the world will weep at losing you. The Ralph Lauren ads will never be the same…. But wait, you were about to lose that contract anyway…"

"The contract was up," Merrie hissed. "I had other commitments. Unlike those of us who had such histrionics we were fired from… how many Broadway productions has it been now?" her voice was saccharine.

"You bitch," Sioux growled.

"Tsk, name-calling. Showing our down-home roots, I see."

"Oh get the hell off your high horse and quit acting like some well-bred debutaunte. You are Mary Ann Stanton from Dayton, Ohio and you damned well know it!" Sioux's hands were clenched, her green eyes narrowed as she stalked toward her friend.

In the last rays of light from the setting sun, Merrie's delicate features had set into something resembling a limestone statue that had had a very bad century. "Oh do tell me more, Susan Jones of Mascootah, Illinois…"

The fight might have gotten perfectly ugly, if the orcs hadn't chosen that moment to come rushing out of the darkness. Orcs as a species never fully developed a good sense of timing critical to their survival. Probably a side effect of being hatched by a wizard with a faulty understanding of evolution. Or a built in flaw to ensure none would ever go rogue.

If Sauruman had understood evolution and the survival of the fittest, more of his creations might have made it home that day. As it was, when Merrie and Sioux turned to glare at the intruders, several smarter orcs slowed their charge. For deep in the eyes of these females, the campfires of the Mesozoic were glittering with deadly intent.

It was a time of ancient survival the orcs had never known.

As the two delicate females parted their lips in feral snarls, somewhere in the ether something that might once have called itself Charles Darwin was chuckling, and something inside the brains of Merrie and Souix whispered "kill or be killed." And they knew in the genetic encoding, deep within the marrow of their bones, which side they wanted to be on.

It was weeks before the nearly-dead Orc captain collapsed before Saruman, his body shaking with exhaustion, nerves jumping with leftover adrenaline, the white hand barely visible through the layers of dirt and blood that coated him. His eyes fixed upon his maker were wide with horror, fear and loathing.

"You… bastard…" he gasped, between painful breaths before he fell to the floor, dead and thankful for it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

_Disclaimer:_ JRR Tolkien owns Middle-Earth. In case you were wondering. And nope, I'm not him. If I was I would be richer and far more dead. And male. And not writing this story, which is all in fun and not meant to legally harm anyone.

------

"Daro!"

Merrie blinked at the tall, lithe figures as they appeared in the cave entrance. She wondered how long they had been standing there- they were difficult to see, blending in with the night. Even now she had difficulty seeing them silhouetted against the dying light of the setting sun.

They stepped forward and at last she could tell that they were dark haired, their builds were identical… as were their faces she realized a moment later. The identical faces were almost too pretty, though from the legs in their leggings they were definitely male. Still, she could tell no difference between the two of them, save that one held a bow and the other a sword.

Identical twins? She frowned as a memory skirted the edge of her mind, but before she could concentrate one of them spoke and she was distracted by the words. They were no language she had ever heard before, she was certain.

As they moved closer, Merrie found herself mesmerized. They moved like dancers. No, more than that. They made every dancer she had ever known look like a klutzy teenager, and a drunk klutzy teenager at that. No human could move like—No human. Oh god, elves? Twin elves?

Elf twins- didn't that Mean Something? There were elf twins in the books…

"Sioux!" Merrie turned to Sioux, only to find Sioux was not there. "SOUIX!" Merrie shrieked, looking around frantically.

There! She lay unmoving on the cave floor. Merrie leapt over a few dead goblins to kneel beside her friend. Sioux's red hair had escaped from her pony tail to spill around her in a fiery halo, her green eyes were closed, but her breathing was even. Distantly Merrie recalled having seen the redhead wrapped around a large goblin, throttling him, recalled the goblin banging into the cave wall…

Merrie prayed that Sioux had just gotten stunned from the impact.

"Sioux, wake up!" Merrie urged, the hot and graceful duo forgotten in her worry. "Please, please wake up…"

The forgotten twosome had not forgotten her. They watched her run to her fallen comrade and the one lowered his sword. He did not, however, sheathe it.

Merrie looked up in time to watch them move toward her, weapons out, but not appearing particularly inclined to kabob her. Still, Merrie stood up again and very nearly stepped away before she remembered to be brave. After all, this was an Adventure, apparently. Being brave always helped someone survive Adventures.

She held out a hand to keep them back.

"Who are you?" her voice was hoarse and trembled nearly as much as the hand she held up. One of them spoke, but again, she could not make out the words.

Damn it, JRR, you had to be a linguist, she reflected, annoyed at this turn of events. Frantically she searched her brain an elvish word or two and wished that Sioux would wake the hell up.

"Mellon?" she asked at last, hoping she hadn't screwed up the pronunciation too badly.

Slowly the twin on the left lowered his bow, though Right still didn't put his sword away. The thing gleamed eerily in the fading light. To Merrie the gleam looked uncomfortably hungry.

Left spoke rapidly. She shook her head at the string of unfamiliar syllables until one word leapt out at her.

"Imladris?" she caught at the familiar sound. That meant Rivendell didn't it? Maybe they were going the right way after all. Both of the elf twins looked intrigued as she parroted the word anyway.

Right spoke now and she realized it was yet another language. This one though… Merrie frowned, trying to wrap her brain around the syllables. Here and there she caught familiar or near-familiar words but just as she thought she might catch the meaning it fell away.

Three sentences in she very nearly screamed.

"Stop!" she implored, shaking her head and giving Right a helpless shrug. "I don't get that one either."

The twins fell silent, regarding her with odd looks. Merrie began to feel an uncomfortable kinship with the pandas in the LA zoo.

She shifted her weight and turned to look at Sioux, willing her to wake up. As she looked back at the twosome, a nervous cough escaped her. Followed by another.

It felt as if she was ripping her own lungs out. Merrie choked on the pain and grabbed her side, which felt surprisingly wet. And sticky. And warm… Oh hell, was that blood? Her blood?

In the near darkness of the cave she couldn't make out much, but she knew her tank top should have been white. It wasn't white now. White wasn't that dark. She could see the other side faintly reflective in its whiteness, but this side…

In the interim between the fall of the last orc and the miscommunication with the double mint elves, Merrie's survival instincts had had time to slip back into the dark genetic cave they came from. Now, staring at the wet, sticky, dark stains, smelling the strange coppery blood smells from the orc bodies no longer echoed through her like the call for pizza. Now it felt like the morning after she'd hoped would never come.

She lifted a trembling hand, staring hard. Her blood. Her blood, bleeding out… Sioux. Sioux was bloody… Ohmigod. Blood!

Merrie turned toward the double McHotties, who were now talking to each other in low voices, using the pretty first language.

"This sucks," she prounounced, just as she felt the world narrow down to the point of light at the cave mouth. Her knees buckled. She didn't fight the fade to black.

If life made any sense at all she would soon be waking up in Egyptian cotton sheets, safe in the arms of Colin. Or Anton. Fabrizio. Carl…

Sioux wasn't exactly sure what the bloody hell was going on, but she knew someone was going pay for it.

Her head hurt… Dear god, what had been in that smoothie? Some new kind of acid, her rational brain decided. Which explained the headache. Acid hangover.

It was a good explanation: more or less logical, explaining that which needed explaining, and did not involve fictional creatures or locations. It was reassuring, simple, and allowed her the luxury of righteous indignation at the nameless café patron who had slipped her acid.

She was just warming up to the idea when she opened her eyes and found herself staring at the extremely hot young man with pointy ears and medieval regalia that was kneeling over her.

Sioux's brain had just enough time to wonder what kind of conditioner he used in his shiny dark hair before it went off to a short break to the Andromeda galaxy.

"Wha-I—Um..?" she managed.

He smiled, perhaps attempting reassurance. Her hormones kicked into overdrive, and she stared mutely at his offered hand for a full minute before she realized he meant to help her stand.

Grateful more for the chance to touch him than for the assistance, Sioux returned his smile and took the hand.

He was hot, he had pointy ears, but he was male. Male she could work with. Her timid smile widened just a little as she gained her feet.

"Thank you," she told him, politely releasing his hand.

"Glass nín." He said it slowly, in a tone she had last heard from her Spanish teacher.

"Glassnin?" She repeated.

He smiled, as if to say "Close enough" but before any further language lessons could ensue, a sound off to the right drew her attention.

Sioux blinked rapidly, wondering if she was perhaps slated for a second waking-up session. There he was over there, bending over Merrie.

Twins, she realized belatedly. The thought took a back seat, however, as she hurried toward her friend.

The elf twin tending Merrie stood up as Sioux ignored him. Her attention was all for Merrie, who was laying still, her breathing ragged. Bandages had been wrapped around her middle, but it looked as though they were already soaking with blood.

The image of a goblin holding a rusty spear flitted through Sioux's mind.

Oh God, no. This could not be happening. Tetanus? Did they have tetanus here? Well, did it matter when they had bloody damned goblins?

"Merrie," she whispered desperately. "Merrie, wake up! You have to wake up. You cannot leave me here. Please? Please, come on, get up lazybones…"

She would have continued, but a hand on her arm startled her tirade out of her head. She turned to glare at the offender, only to make a startling discovery: It was physically impossible to glare at the elf twins.

Something about the serene and glowing hotness, probably. Like trying to stay unhappy while staring at Orlando Bloom.

Sioux stood up to save her neck from craning up to see the beautiful if ridiculously tall elf.

"Im Elrohir," her language teacher informed her. "Elladan," he added, gesturing to the other.

Looking between the two of them, Sioux deduced that this information would be helpful for all of ten minutes, or until they moved closer together. There was no difference that she could see. Tall, lithe, dark hair, gray clothing, lots of weapons, dreamy. Nope, no differences.

I wonder if twins look alike everywhere? She laughed at the thought, and wondered if she might get the chance to find out. Well, not with these two, she remembered. Elves didn't do sex. She'd always thought it was silly idea, and looking at these two she decided it was a complete waste.

"Sioux," she said, pointing at herself. "Suilad, Elrohir," she added, hoping that she got it right and that it really meant hello. She thought it did, but she'd probably gotten it from a fanfic, in which case who knew if it was right… other than the elves…


	4. Chapter 4

**Merrie and Sioux in Middle-Earth**

**Chapter 4**

_Disclaimer: This story is not written by JRR Tolkien and will make no one any profits. It's all in fun. Merrie and Sioux are original (insofar as satiric literary abominations are original), but I'm not overly attached to them. _

… … **Back To The Story … … **

Sioux really needed to stay in her own room and quit making so much noise. Why was she talking? It couldn't possibly be important enough to gte up for. Not after that last dream.

Ow. Her side ached.

"Merrie, get up! Get up right now or I'll tell your agent that you don't want to take that part in the Silmarillion."

Merrie's eyes popped open as Sioux's weight settled onto her bed. "You'll never guess the dream I had last night! It was—" She trailed off as she turned to look at Sioux. The next words were quickly forgotten. That was not Sioux. For one thing, the body was male. It was wearing robes. It- he- had dark hair, gray eyes, gorgeous bone structure, a silver circlet and…. Oh God. Pointed ears.

"Sioux?" Her voice shook a little as her sanity wobbled indecisively over its decision to remain.

Her friend appeared from behind Mr. Pointy-Eared-Not-Sioux. Although on reflection of last night's dream, perhaps it was Lord Pointy-Eared-Not-Sioux.

Lord Pointy was speaking. Merrie blinked at him, hoping she looked semi-intelligent and not understanding a single syllable.

"Parlez vous francais? Hablais espanol?" Merrie tried.

"No good," Sioux said affably, stepping away from Lord Pointy and dropping onto a stool nearby. "They keep trying languages on me but none of them have discovered English yet. He may want to check on your bandages." Bandages?

"You're too chipper." Merrie scrunched her nose to illustrate her distaste for this fact. "What happened? Why do I have bandages? Do they have caffeine?" she asked the last question with a dawning sense of hope. All was not lost if there was still caffeine…

"No, but the food's good."

Merrie wondered if this is what heartbreak felt like. No caffeine? Life was a barren desert.

Lord Spock was now watching them both with a bemused academic look that Sioux found rather unsettling. It was the same look her biology teacher had given her the first semester she took it.

He spoke again and it did not take Merrie long to recognize the maddening near-misses of the twin mctasties' speech.

"What the bloody freaking hell language is that?" She turned her head to look at Sioux a little desperately.

Sioux looked similarly disturbed. "No idea, but they keep using it at me. It's maddening."

Lord Spock sighed and resorted to speaking the first, prettier language, though now the words were slower and punctuated with hand gestures.

For the first time, Merrie's eyes went beyond him to take in the room she was in. It was light, airy, full of impossibly intricate stone and woodwork. Everything looked delicate and art-nuveau in a renaissance way. She also noticed the two armed pointy-ears near the door and a couple more peaceful looking ones not far away.

"Right. Okay," Merrie focused back on Lord Pointy, who bore a passing resemblance to the twin hotties. But she wasn't going to think about that. "Bandages?"

"Yep, I'm guessing," Sioux affirmed. "Told you so. And intros." She laughed, and it was one that suggested quietly that maybe Sioux's sanity wasn't quite sure it wanted to stay here much longer. "You're going to love this."

"No, I'm really not." Sioux ignored the interruption.

"Merrie McPherson, meet Master Elrond Peredhil aka Halfelven, of Rivendell."

"You've been dying to do that," Merrie observed.

"All morning." Sioux looked close to giggling in a hysterical fashion.

"Pleased to meet you, Lord—erm, Master Elrond."

Elrond smiled kindly and said something that Merrie took to mean "Back at you, strange female."

The other elves who had followed him in produced more bandages, helping him as he set about unwrapping Merrie's ribs.

Merrie found herself unwilling to look at the impossibly hot fantastical creature who was currently playing with her midsection. Instead she looked at Sioux, who was trying unsuccessfully to stifle her giggles at the looks the elves were giving to Merrie's purple designer bra.

Merrie glared at the chortling redhead before closing her eyes. She had done her share of nearly-nude shoots, she could handle this. So what that the person prodding her was not the usual make-up artist but an unearthly male hunk of immortal hotness who was old enough to make Sean Connery look like a teenager?

"This is wonky on so many levels," she murmured.

"Oh, just wait," Sioux laughed. "Be glad you weren't up and around for the whole getting here thing. I got to play Me Tarzan You Jane with Lord Hotness's twin Hotness Jrs. One of them is brilliant at charades." She paused. "Do they have charades here?"

Merrie frowned, pondering the idea of ethereal immortal beings of legendary wisdom, who sang and had epic adventures playing party games. Then again, they had wine.

"Probably. But they're really ancient and dignified," she concluded.

"Everything they do is dignified," Sioux lamented. "It's seriously frightening. Just wait until you're up and moving here. They're graceful and radiant and I've started dreaming one of them will just drop something. Just once."

There didn't seem to be anything to say to that. Merrie opted to change the subject.

"How long have we been here?" It seemed to her that Sioux was far too unnerved to have been here only a few hours.

"A day and a half. Twin one- I think Elrohir- put you under some elf whammy Kel'no'rim."

"Please don't say things like that!" Merrie's face went pale, earning a concerned look from Elrond and the helpers. "It might make T'ilk appear."

"Don't be daffy, Mer. He isn't Candyman."

"Sioux, we're in Rivendell. Elrond Halfelven is checking out my bra and a hole in my side from a goblin-"

Elrond raised a brow, glancing between them and obviously wondering whether they should be separated for their own good. Merrie and Sioux both smiled their Charity Events Sweetness Smiles.

"Orc," Sioux corrected.

"Whatever. We got here by petting a picture. Do you really think mentioning anything from equally improbably fiction is worth the risk?"

"When you put it like that… No."

….

"I wonder what they're discussing?" Erestor remarked from the doorway.

Elrond shrugged and looked at the woman before him. "Your wound is healing," he told her, perfectly aware it was useless. Her eyes, the color of a summer sky, were serious as she regarded him.

"H-hannon le?" Her voice was soft, hesitant as she stumbled over the words. He sat back, startled.

"You are welcome," he said automatically. He studied her closely. "You two are a riddle I know not how to read. You speak phrases of Sindarin," he looked at her flame-haired companion, "yet you do not know the language, nor even the speech of men."

"I am not so certain they do not." Erestor strode toward the group, ignoring the wary gazes of the strangers. "Have you not noticed their reactions to Westron? They become frustrated, confused. Perhaps they speak a form of that language, far enough removed that it is only vaguely comprehensible to them."

"Their speech patterns are not of that language," Silinde countered. The blond elf looked at his fellow councilor. "Only a few of their words are familiar and they may be so only because of an unfamiliar accent."

Elrond sighed, holding up a hand to forestall further argument. Merrie and Sioux were staring at them in uncomprehending wonder. It reminded Elrond of elflings first seeing snow. Elflings who had wandered alone and unarmed through the mountains and somehow held off a group of orcs.

"Where do they come from?" he asked his advisors. "I sense none of the enemy's touch in this and yet-"

"They are not humans as we know them," Erestor finished his lord's thoughts. Elrond nodded.

Glorfindel chose this time to speak from his self-appointed post beside the door. "The twins have told me that Sioux-" the human in question turned her green eyes to regard him warily- "does not know how to hold a sword, can barely manage a bow. Even their clothes are unlike anything I have seen. The materials alone have never been beheld in Arda and I do not remember such even in Valinor."

Elrond's mind flitted to the purple cloth covering Merrie's torso, which was certainly of no hue nor fabric ever seen in Arda. He shook his head. There was no ending to the questions this pair raised, and answers, it seemed, would be some time coming. "Erestor, Silinde, see if they can be taught Sindarin, Westron, some language at least that we may all communicate in."

For a moment he thought his advisors would protest this, but they did not. He waited until they both nodded their assent.

"We shall endeavor," Erestor said at last.


End file.
